Hey, Nice 12AT Savanna, great fun little car.
I have the same thing for about 5 years except mines the mid range GT-x, it's even the same colour.
I took it out on some windy roads today for the first time in ages,I had been trying to sell it but am reconsidering having just moved from the boring west aussie roads to a really great area in Victoria where I can
actually enjoy it.

Thanks eskimo i'm looking forward to the day it gets complied and becomes fully road-legal, but realistically I don't see it happening this year. Your JDM SA22C will be even rarer over in Australia, if I were you I'd probably try to hang on to it!

Managed to pick up a few more "rare" spares/restoration stuff for it lately: a 2nd hand front plate mount which needs to be sanded down and repainted, a genuine new old stock ROTARY TURBO decal for the front bumper (see here) and a pair of genuine 2nd hand ROTARY TURBO B-pillar badges. unfortunately the 2-seater interior remains elusive.

I've also started looking for a new centre console surround, as the original one has a big crack in it, and also replacement knobs for the factory AM/FM radio. Been a bit of a challenge so far but I'm used to it by now

Well, I didn't end up buying SSR Mark-IIIs off YAJ like I said I was gonna initially.

Got some of these instead:

Near mint condition WedsSport Professor fins, 15x6.5 off+20. The price? 11,500 yen for the set (+ shipping) and yes, the centre caps are staying

Did a quick test fit to the car sans tyres to see if everything gelled, and the results were satisfying - although I'm not sure if there will be any guard-to-wheel contact once tyres are fitted. The 2nd shot almost suggests there may be... :/

23 months and 9 days later... SUCCESS, my rotary is finally all legal to drive on New Zealand roads

(warning, wall of text follows, you can stop reading at this point if you want, and skip to the photos at the bottom)

my importer had a mate who ran a reputable compliance centre and this was where I'd taken squid (my DR30 Skyline RS-X sedan) to be complied back in late 2006. They did an awesome job with less than a fortnight's turnaround so I figured why not use them again. So I booked the banana in and dropped it off for the initial inspection in January 2009.

At the time we all thought the process would be as straightforward as squid had been, but little did anyone know that i'd just opened up a very messy can of worms

As mentioned earlier, the car already had a warning flag in the system due to the accident damage to the front right quarter, and so the repair certifier was called in while the car was at compliance to have a look at this. The driver's door, front guards, and clip had to be removed and the space in the driver's footwell to be cleared for a proper chassis rail inspection. So the week before the repair certifier arrived i spent a couple of late nights removing and clearing everything that I needed to, then a few hours taking the driver's side front wheel off and scraping away the underseal/paint to get to the welds underneath.

Then it was D-day, and that was when the shit really hit the fan. Repair certifier came in and did all his tests, it turns out the weirdly bent front suspension was the symptom of a rather nasty knock to the front right of the car which resulted in a crabbed chassis.

Here's that photo of the car up on the hoist... see that kink in the seam, just rearward of the front wheel? Yeah.

The chassis damage was serious enough for the car to require a certain amount of intimacy with the car-o-liner, so I talked to my panelbeater Tony about fitting it into his already hectic schedule... no dice, he was booked solid for the next nine months repairing other pieces of junk and his chassis machine would be in use almost non-stop So it was out of there and into deep storage while I plotted my next move.

And then I kinda ended up putting a Link in my TX3 and finishing off the restoration on that, so the RX-7 sat untouched for the better part of a year. oops

Meanwhile the manager of the compliance shop (whom I deal with personally) kept ringing me every few months asking if I'd found a panelbeater willing to fix the car, and if not, he knew a couple of places I could take it for quick turnaround. It wasn't until February this year (2010) that I decided to take him up on his offer, after talking to some other panel shops and getting quoted hideous amounts for what was actually supposed to be a very straightforward repair

so the RX-7 entered the panelshop in March for six weeks of intensive tugging - initial measurements found the FR corner was 11mm forward of where it was meant to be and the RL corner to be 8mm rearward, resulting in the chassis taking on an interesting 'trapezoidal' shape The foreman of the shop was very helpful in walking me through all the repairs that had taken place in Japan, his verdict was that while they'd been completed to an incredibly high standard, the Japs simply hadn't bothered straightening the chassis as it wasn't a "compulsory" requirement of re-inspection over there.

the scary thing is a LOT of cars end up that way in Japan, especially the collectable ones - I'm lucky I never had any serious problems with my Skylines...

I got the call that the car was ready and the repairs signed off in early May, so make the arrangements to have it delivered to the compliance shop. However a lowly employee decided to make everyone's day turn to custard when he abruptly sent the transporter with the RX-7 on it back across town to the panelbeaters TWICE due to not knowing it was supposed to be booked back in (everything had been arranged between the managers of the respective companies). Cue a lot of cursing and swearing on my part, playing phone tag and talking with oblivious drones trying to get the car re-delivered.

anyway it finally got dropped off to begin re-compliance BUT partway through the process the guy who does the seatbelts decided to have some sort of crisis and not turn up to werk for a week.

The shop got another seatbelt guy in to finish the job, but this second guy was a bit of a harsh bugger, and immediately failed the car due to an insane theory that it required REAR BELTS, even though it was originally vinned as a TWO-SEATER. It was about this time that the shop manager decided to go back to the Philippines on holiday and left the place in the hands of one of his assistants.

as a result, nothing ended up getting done on the RX-7 until the end of June, during which time the car went through two vin rechecks by two different inspectors and they both found different faults on the car. The manager of the shop returned from holiday and promptly blew a brain valve when he saw the car was still there, called me up and apologized profusely. As he explained, his assistant didn't know what to do about the seatbelt mess and decided to leave it until he returned. uhh... good one

We ended up getting a friendly LVV certifier by the name of Clint to have a look, and he reported that since the car had been vinned as a legitimate two-seater, the only thing that needed to be done was to replace the front belts, remove the rear seats and cover ALL the bolt holes and mounting points in the back without requiring a LVV cert. This was confirmed by one of the VTNZ inspectors from Henderson who ended up doing the final inspection on the car.

(Note to people from overseas, LVV is low volume certification for vehicles that have been specially modified for whatever reason. VTNZ is one of the few companies in NZ authorized to sign off compliance on vehicles about to enter the NZ fleet)

So after doing all that plus the werk required to rectify the faults found in the two inspection rechecks, here we are today with the car FINALLY road legal.

There's still a bit of pissing around left to be done though, so stay tuned for MOAR TALES OF INTEREST. Right now I'm just enjoying being able to drive the damn thing for the first time in two years!

Nice work, Ive brought a few cars in that have been damaged before for myself. Its a mission unless you know what you have to do first and the costs involved.
To cert it cost over $1000 just to get it looked at and re measured etc.

Nice work much better than a slammed poor old Rx with a white after market seats and new taco's "shudder".

Hi Orion!
What a beautiful car. Do you still looking for the radio knobs? I have them. Drop me a line to rx7@freemail.hu if you still need 'em. Anyway I have a '83 european model FB and I'm thinking about a 12AT conversion, do you have sources where I can get parts from?

cheers for the comments. The plan for this car is to keep it as period-correct as possible - so definitely no monster tachos, no excessive lowering, and I'm going to have to take great care with deciding how I'm going to go about performing an audio install.

some of you may already have noticed that the RX-7 is rolling on different rims than when it first arrived in NZ. The BBS mesh copies it came with had always been earmarked for the dustbin, as they plain don't float my boat at all.

the original plan was to hunt down some 15" SSR Mark-IIIs but after weeks of fruitless searching on YAJ I more or less gave up (there simply wasn't anything within budget and in the correct diameter/offset). However I chanced across these brand new old stock WedsSport Professor Fins in 15x6.5 +20 offset, and even though I wasn't really sure how they'd look on the banana I decided to stick a bid on and managed to snap them up for a very sharp price.

how sharp, you may ask?

the RX-7 is no exception to the uncanny rule that every single car I own has to accumulate multiple sets of wheels over its lifetime; thus in addition to a set of standard Series 3 rims I also possess this set of flat-faced 1980s turbofan style 14x6.0 +35s, I think they're WindMuhle copies but can't be sure. They're in dire need of a blast and repaint, but if I ever feel the urge to toss the Profs for any reason these will be the replacements of choice

The dish is indeed a bit much, no?

anyway, getting back to the unanswered question from before... namely, "how does the RX-7 look on the Professors?"

The answer is "bloody nice" actually. Bring a finned wheel some people don't like them all that much, and they may not have gigantic amounts of dish, but I personally reckon they suit the period-spec 'old man with a touch of class' nature of the car down to a tee. And besides, what other wheels are there which haven't already been done to death on a RX-7?

the weather was so mint today, I couldn't resist snapping a few moar photagonals of the savanna banana.

I run into these all the time in the yards here.I'll keep and eye open for your interior.

no disrispect zukiru but i doubt you run into this you see alot of reg us market rx7 but i have never seen in the us of course an rx7 turbo from factory in that early model year lol i you have them down in bama ill be right over lol nice ride dude gd luck take care of that gem .........

over the weekend I fitted my spare CD headunit in anticipation of a roadtrip next month - travelling gets tiring without any music to listen to! Thought about installing my spare amp and sub also, but decided it wasn't worth doing as I'll just be ripping it all out again later on down the track.

by some stroke of luck the vehicle happened to come with vintage Pioneer speakers already installed. Which suits me fine as I'm a bit of a Pioneer nutter Plus it made the next step of the planned audio install even more relevant.

note the tweeter angle adjustment ("Tilt Axial Two-Way"), these puppies are the epitome of 80s tech. Now 10W nominal power is nothing compared to the speakers of today, but it doesn't matter because I have a cunning plan.

with the help of my friend Ewan, who runs Hayatonka (a YAJ bidding service), I picked up some early 80s Pioneer Lonesome Car-boy audio gear.

first up, a couple of cassette decks, an EQ, and a spare GM-4 amp. The decks have broken motors but are fine otherwise.

And a third cassette deck that was ridiculously cheap, the seller had no idea if it went or not. Bonus if it does!

Rounding it off with a GM-D8 bad boy main amp. This was top of the line back in the early 80s, with a hearty 30W+30W of continuous power (40W MAX).

The aim is to open one of the non-functional decks (in the first photo) and somehow figure out a way of tapping a standard auxiliary cable into the pre-amp channels; this way I can attach an external music player and still have treble/bass, volume and fader controls.

Hi Orion!
Great old school audio system. I like it much. Are you planing to fit them into the center dash? I have a dash with a cut out hole -the GSL-SE Clarion stereo (radio,deck,EQ) fits in-. You may can use it, I Don't need it anymore.
Anyway I've sent you an email attaching a pic of the factory knobs I have.
You wrote that you give me some kinda connection to your friend in Japan who can source and ship 12A turbo for me, I'm still very interested.
Thanks

So the clutch master cylinder on the RX-7 decided to explode, one hour before I was scheduled to leave town for the weekend Managed to limp the car to my friend's garage where he took the cylinder apart, quickly freshened up the bore and made a shim out of a little piece of plastic. Just like MacGyver!

after a quick bleed and top-up this was deemed satisfactory as a temp fix, so I set off on my journey south to Taupo (280km from Auckland). Shifting was a bit notchy over 4000rpm so I took it easy all of the way... but it's kinda hard to stay in this mindset when the end destination happens to be the racetrack

Luckily everything held together and I was able to take the car for a few laps around the track and then back home again that same weekend. I think the weather may have played a big part in helping the car stay in one piece - was a bit reluctant to go all-out in the extremely wet conditions. Now I'm just waiting for some free time (i.e. when I'm not playing around with my Skyline) to fit the new clutch parts.

after the little stint on the track, I'm tempted to open up the exhaust (it's still running the factory heavily restricted and catalyzed system) as there's a very sharp dropoff of power after 4500rpm, but I guess some of this could be attributed to the characteristics of the standard turbo. However the voice of reason in my head tells me I'm better off keeping it standard, otherwise I'll never stop tinkering...

I absolutely love your GT Turbo. What a fantastic car! i had a chance to drive a Turbo RX-7 once when I was in Japan many years ago and I instantly feel in love. Unfortunately the 12A Turbo was never imported here in Canada so I have to settle for my 1985 GSL 12A.

Cheers man. Your SA22C doesn't look half bad either to this day I still field a ton of questions about the factory EGI turbo setup, sounds like Mazda Japan must've been really good at keeping secrets from the rest of the world. Although the info is all out there if people bothered to do their research!

as for updates on this car I don't really have any, although I did buy a Recaro seat rail for the driver's side so I can fit one of my LX seats temporarily while I take the original out to get repaired (torn upholstery).

The warrant of fitness has now lapsed meaning the car can't legally be driven until I obtain another one, which won't happen until I swap the rear seats out for a 2-seater interior... the reason why is mentioned elsewhere in this thread.